Expression and clinical significance of HIF-1αin breast cancer / 中华内分泌外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To detect the expression of hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) in breast can-cer and to investigate the feasibility of HIF-1α as a new therapy target for breast cancer. Methods 56 cancer tissue specimens of women with primary breast cancer admitted from Jan. 2013 to Dec. 2013 in the Fourth Hos-pital of Hebei Medical University Breast Center were selected. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the ex-pression of HIF-1α protein in cancer tissues. The relation between HIF-1α protein expression and the clinico-pathological parameters was analyzed. Results The positive expression rate of HIF-1α protein in breast cancer was 73.2% (41/56) and its high expression rate was 41.1% (23/56), which were significantly higher than those in benign breast tumor group (P=0.000). HIF-1α protein expression was positively correlated with breast tumor size, stage, histological grade, lymph node metastasis and the expression of HER2, and it was negtively correlated with ER. Conclusions High expression of HIF-1α in breast cancer was significantly associated with poor prog-nosis. HIF-1α protein is also a risk factor for breast cancer as well as HER2, and they may have a synergistic role in the progression of breast cancer.